{"id":169,"date":"2018-12-23T16:01:39","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T16:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/?p=169"},"modified":"2018-12-23T16:01:39","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T16:01:39","slug":"felt-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/skywritings\/2018\/12\/23\/felt-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Felt Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Wired<\/a>, Marvin Minsky claims in “The Emotion Machine<\/a>” that “anger, love, and other emotions are types of thought, not feeling.”<\/p>\n

In fact it’s exactly<\/i> the reverse. Thoughts are a kind of feeling<\/a> (namely, what it feels like to be processing certain information: understanding X, meaning Y, believing Z).<\/p>\n

And there’s a world of difference between the two positions. Saying that feeling is just a kind of thinking (i.e., information-processing state) is saying nothing, because the fact that it is felt is precisely what makes whatever kind<\/i> of “information-processing state” thought is different<\/i>, and in special need of explanation. <\/p>\n

In contrast, saying that thinking is a kind of feeling — though it certainly doesn’t explain feeling! — makes it quite clear that it’s not just feeling pinches and seeing pink that need explanation, but also thinking X. <\/p>\n

Hence “thinking” cannot be used as an unexplicated bootstrap for explaining feeling: Just exactly what sort of thing conscious “thinking” is — as opposed to mere unconscious data-crunching — is part of the problem<\/a>, not the solution!<\/p>\n

Zounds, how insouciant people can be, in the ways they keep begging this particular question! Sometimes they don’t have the faintest understanding (only the feeling<\/i> of understanding).<\/p>\n

Which is yet another interesting property of cognition: There’s saying 2+2=4, understanding “2+2=4”, believing that “2+2=4” — and then there’s the further matter of whether 2+2 does indeed equal 4 (or whether snow is white, or F=ma, or april showers indeed bring may flowers…). <\/p>\n

See: Harnad, S. (2001) Spielberg’s AI: Another Cuddly No-Brainer<\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Wired, Marvin Minsky claims in “The Emotion Machine” that “anger, love, and other emotions are types of thought, not feeling.” In fact it’s exactly the reverse. Thoughts are a kind of feeling (namely, what it feels like to be processing certain information: understanding X, meaning Y, believing Z). And there’s a world of … <\/p>\n

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